


One Man Show

by airy_nothing



Category: Glee
Genre: Childhood, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-24
Updated: 2013-06-24
Packaged: 2017-12-15 23:24:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/855182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/airy_nothing/pseuds/airy_nothing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five-year-old Blaine plans his first concert.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Man Show

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Thebeastisyou](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thebeastisyou/gifts).



> Written for thebeastisyou, who prompted me with "blaine's first concert." Pardon me for using an omniscient POV here. It feels weird but right and interesting.

If Cooper were to walk into the playroom just at this moment, he'd find his five-year-old brother bent completely over the open storage trunk, his legs practically sticking up in the air. Articles of clothing and other accessories would periodically be launched into the open space of the basement playroom: a pith helmet, a bedazzled glove his mother let him keep, a plastic axe. Clearly, something important is going to happen.

But Cooper doesn't get to see that; he's mowing a neighbor's lawn after yet another of his father's attempts to engage his son, this time through a summer vacation business plan. And yet, if his father were to drive by this particular neighbor's house just at this moment, he'd find a lawn half-cut, a mower left unattended (but off), and his teenage son leaning up against the post on the front porch of the home, deep in conversation with a young woman who, propping herself on the door frame, holds the screen door ajar with her bare foot while a shy smile plays upon her lips.

Blaine's mother doesn't see the mess the playroom's become, but she finds three pages of white paper spread side by side along the living room couch. At the top of the first sheet in her son's writing are the words, “SAY MY NAME.” Never mind the N is backwards, and the e looks more like a swirl. Underneath the title are little stick figures in rows, each one a little bit different from the last. One has an arm extended, while the next one's leg sticks out.  _They're dance moves,_ she eventually realizes, her smile full of joy and wonder. If only she'd been there a moment ago; she would've found a curly-haired boy working a Rewind button on the CD player, then dancing, then hunching over those pages deep in concentration, recording choreography through kid hieroglyphs. 

At the end of the day Blaine’s father walks in to find the fireplace adorned with a sheet, a desk lamp angled toward it like a spotlight. There’s a sign taped to the mantle, clearly put there by his wife, which reads, “ONE MAN SHOW.” He notes the backward N’s. And then Blaine comes bounding down the stairs, because he’s got tickets to sell for his “concert,” and won’t Daddy buy some? Then Cooper strolls in from outside, smelling faintly of freshly-cut grass, takes in the scene and says, “Hey, Squirt, how come I’m not in this show?” To Blaine's credit, his father thinks, his youngest replies, “It’s a ONE man show,  _that’s_  why.” 

As for Blaine, the Boy Wonder, well. If  _he_ were to see himself, perhaps from the future—from some time when he needs to be reminded of who he is—what would he see? He’d probably watch happily as his younger self plays a minuet on the keyboard from memory, fingers dancing across the keys. He’d giggle at the way Little Blaine checks his notes during the Destiny’s Child number, just to make sure the wiggles and kicks, such as they are, happen according to plan. (And his older self knows not to glance at his father’s raised eyebrows, at the judgement already growing there.) And when Little Blaine grabs the axe and slings it over his shoulder,  and begins belting out Tin Man's longing and desire, when he smiles through  _I'd be tender, I'd be gentle, and awful sentimental—regarding love and art,_ Older Blaine would notice Cooper's expression, which would be one of someone noticing something for the very first time. And this Blaine, the one from the future, whose life fell to pieces, would be reminded beyond all doubt of what he's meant to be. What he's  _always_  meant to be.


End file.
